


If You Loved Me

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Gladiator (2000)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-12-18
Updated: 2005-12-18
Packaged: 2018-01-25 04:29:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1631564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It would have been easier to continue living with the ghost of a happy past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If You Loved Me

**Author's Note:**

> Written for soo

 

 

###### Disclaimer: This fandom belongs to DreamWorks LLC and Universal Studios. No profit is made from this story, no rights are asserted, and no infringement intended. Written for entertainment only.

_My father favours you now. It was not always so._

Lucilla reminded Maximus of this, but she herself needs no reminder. It has been the thing to re-shape her life, to twist it like a noose around her neck, since that fateful day - the last time she saw Maximus before he was made general and she was made wife to Lucius.

It began when they were growing up. Maximus was a friend and companion to Commodus and Lucilla, a glimpse of the greater world outside the limitations of the imperial palace. They could not play with the children out in the street, or sit and sing songs and read stories with any but their tutors. Except for Maximus, who had been orphaned and caught their father's attention for his eagerness to fight and skill with the blade in one so young. The emperor took him under his wing and gave him shelter and food. Not a home, never a home; not even his own children had one of those. But Maximus was bought for them like a plaything.

It worked out well. Maximus had a future. Their father had someone to show off to Commodus as an example. Commodus had someone to spar with. And Lucilla had a protector; and eventually, after they all left their childhoods behind them, she had someone to look up to, to worship, and to fall in love with.

"You won't ever leave us, Maximus, will you?" she asked him on a warm summer's afternoon in the gardens.

He looked at her with an indulgent smile and told her, as if speaking to a child, "Don't worry, Lucilla. I'll always protect you."

"That is not an answer," she accused him, angry at his evasion and even angrier that he still thought of her like a little sister.

He avoided her eyes when he explained. "The emperor has decided that it is time for me to join the army. He wishes me to lead them one day."

Lucilla gasped. "No!"

"I must," Maximus said. "You know I must do as he tells me. He is the emperor. And he is my guardian."

Lucilla's eyes swam when she asked, "When are you leaving?"

"Soon." Maximus sighed and looked at her. "Tomorrow."

Betrayal darkened Lucilla's eyes. "Why did you not tell me?"

"I knew it would upset you." Maximus raised his hand to cup her cheek. The sensation made her shiver, but he withdrew his hand too quickly to even commit the touch to memory. "But you must understand, Lucilla. We are not children any longer. We cannot stay together."

"I do _not_ understand. If you loved me..." Lucilla gasped. She had not meant to say that. Horrified, she clapped her hand over her mouth and ran from the garden to her rooms, paying no mind to Maximus calling after her.

She was ashamed that she had reacted like the child Maximus still thought her to be. She was ashamed that she had demanded proof of his love, when it was all too clear that he did not feel as she did. Her own brother looked at her with more desire than Maximus; she tried not to become hysterical. She paced and worried so much that she did not hear the doors open ever so softly.

"Lucilla."

She looked up to find Maximus standing in the open doorway.

"May I come in?"

She shook her head and turned her back on him.

Of course, he ignored this, and when the door softly fell shut, she knew he was still in the room. He followed no orders but the emperor's and his own council. "Look at me, Lucilla."

"No. Please leave, Maximus."

"I will, all too soon. I do not want to leave like this."

A strong hand, roughened from sword practice, rested on her shoulder, and her skin tingled under the thin blue thread of her dress. She closed her eyes, memorizing the touch.

"Why will you not look at me?" His voice was softer than she had ever heard it.

She held back tears. "I have made a fool of myself already. I do not wish to make matters worse."

Maximus raised the other hand and turned her back forcibly by her shoulders. "But you are my fool, Lucilla."

There was a smile and a gentleness in his words which finally made her meet his eyes. "Maximus?"

"You know I do not speak of how I feel if I can help it. And you have always been so bright and clever and observant, my little fool. I thought you knew."

"Knew what?" she asked, confused but suddenly hopeful.

Maximus smiled, cupping her chin in his fingers. "That I love you. That I always have and always will, no matter what might happen or where our lives might lead us." He leaned towards her and kissed her very gently.

Lucilla, suddenly feeling weak and unsteady, gripped his tunic in her fingers for support. Her eyes fluttered closed when Maximus parted her lips with his tongue and invaded her.

The world seemed to tilt, and Lucilla found herself on her back, lying across her bed, with Maximus kneeling between her legs.

She moaned into his mouth, her nose filled with his scent - warm and musky. When she felt his hand sliding up her thigh under her dress, she let her legs fall open further, and he lowered himself down on her.

"Lucilla," he whispered. "My beautiful Lucilla." He arched against her, and she gasped, feeling him hot and hard through the layers of cloth separating them.

She began to pull at the fastenings on his clothes, and Maximus, encouraged, pushed her dress up around her hips, his rough hands tearing the gossamer fabric, until he felt the damp, bare skin of her inner thighs. And when she stilled in his arms with a sharp inhalation, he angled his fingers to graze her softness, then pushed them inside.

Her moans, helpless with want, and the warm wetness surrounding his fingers, nearly undid him. He pushed into her over and over, kissing her face, her neck, her pert breasts through thin cloth. When her breathing grew irregular, he stopped, but only to push his own clothes out of the way.

"I love you, Maximus," Lucilla gasped.

He stilled, caressing her cheek. "And I love you," he said, very softly.

Lucilla was panting, her long fingers buried in Maximus' hair. She was waiting, knowing what is what she was waiting for, but not how it would feel, or whether it would hurt, or whether it would make her long for Maximus any less, or even more. She did not care. He would leave her, but she would at least take this from him. Parting her legs wide and drawing her knees closer to her body, she opened herself to Maximus.

When he entered her with a brief, sharp pain, she whimpered, but he kissed her long and gently until she relaxed again. When they began to rock together, the sense of urgency was gone, and they made love at a pace which both would be able to recall.

The night seemed too brief, but they clung to it and held it until the impending dawn could no longer be denied.

Lucilla wanted promises that Maximus would return, that he wanted her to wait for him, that she would be his one day; but she voiced none of it. In her heart, she knew that he would promise her anything she asked, but she also knew that in the end, he was subject to her father's whims and plans. She knew that if there was a woman anywhere who would make him defy the emperor, it was not her.

Maximus left her with a kiss and reassurances that he would never forget her, and that she would always have a special place in his heart. But he did _leave_ her.

The emperor told his daughter a month later that Maximus had asked for her hand, but that he had denied it, because Lucius - who had asked as well - was a better match.

Lucilla cried for a day and a night, but in the end, there seemed little reason to defy her father when Maximus would not.

It did not mean she loved him any less, or that she would ever stop. But it would have been easier to continue living with the ghost of a happy past, than with the distance she sees in his eyes now.

THE END

 

 

 


End file.
